mental health:TV, video games promoting violence

Negative use of multimedia cause for concern

TV, video games promoting violence

By Dalal Nasser Al-Otaibi


Television and video games have the power to change our behavior and turn us into more violent people. The spread of games like “Battle Filed”, “Splinter Cell”, “Half Life” and last but not least” Grand Those Auto”, influence violent behavior. Those games have a lot of bloody scenes, especially “Grand Theft Auto” In “”Grand Theft Auto” you are criminal who completes a mission, like assassinating gang members.
The game also has a lot of killing, scenes like killing people with a chain-saw and machine-guns. The more you kill in the game, the better is your reputation. The game influences a person into thinking that if he commits a crime he will become popular and strong person, and more aggression will be brought into his life. Males are influenced by aggression more than females because they want to be strong and act like they are. “ Studies have shown that television’s effect on aggression is stronger among boys than girls”) Eshhcolz and Bufkin 656). These kinds of productions are filling the heads of people with negative ideas and influencing one’s behavior. Newsday had an articles on a real story where a man absorbed violence from the movie Robocop and Robocop II. The man who committed the crimes said that he committed his first of six crimes after seeing Robocop. “Referring to a character in Robocop II, Nathaniel White told WNBC:”I saw him cut somebody’s throat then take the knife and slit down the chest to the stomach and leave the body in a certain position. With the first person I killed I did exactly what I saw in the movie.” (Newsday, August 6, 1992)
Television and video games are shown influence violent behavior and it has been proven by the Department of Psychiatry, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, Indiana and Department of Radiology, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis. ”Violent television and video games have shown short-term increases in aggressive behavior in children, adolescents, and adults and co-relational studies suggest a long-term association between media violence exposure and aggressive behavior in the natural environment.”(Kronenberge and Williams 202).
For people who are already aggressive in nature, it will be a disaster. Researchers have said that aggressive people are the ones attracted to violent material and tend to watch it often to stimulate themselves. People who are aggressive in nature and also normal people may get violent thoughts from watching violent multimedia. ”Evidence indicates that media violence does elicit thoughts and emotional responses related to aggression.” (Felson, B. Richard 1996). The material shown in the multimedia is reshaping the values and is with no doubt escalating the undesirable behavior. The media increasingly shows material that is permissive, has problematic ideas, and images that include violence and drugs.
Televisions and video games are available to every single person, including children. Children can view this material and imitate the violence ;a child can commit a crime by watching a violent movie, or playing a violent video game. “Children imitate the violence they see on television, the process of imitation is emphasized by the social learning theory – a well-established approach in social psychology”(Felson, B. Richard 1996). Incidents have occurred where little children have taken violent ideas from a movie, which is why the situation is dangerous and it is evident, that multimedia does have a violent effect on the behavior of people. “After watching a genie on TV slap someone on both sides of the head, two children in England copied the stunt and suffered perforated eardrums. Other children, in different parts of the country, were also injured in what became known as (the slapping craze)”(The Guardian. March 12,1992).
Children are even more affected by what they see and absorb and it becomes a part of them. “Several studies in the field of psychology have found a relationship between children’s media consumption (particularly television and film) and aggression (Comstock and film) 1991, Hogben, 1998 This relationship is strongest when (1) children are exposed to the media at a young age (2) media exposure is high, (3) media content is violent (Hogben1998), and (4) (when the children are boys”) Eschholz and Bufkin 656. (Sickminded people will commit more crimes and normal people will be pulled towards the world of violence. “It could increase the frequency of violence if people who are motivated to harm someone choose a violent method they have observed on television.” (Felson, B. Richard 1996) Violence Is an addiction and seeing violence on television and video games just makes matters worse. People are getting used to seeing violence on television and video games which make it become normal as time passed by. The famous Nazi twins were influenced by racist and aggressive video games. The twins played those games and recited the aggressive racist songs. The Nazi twins were also a victim of the media violence and their behavior was shaped by the video games. The hate they hold inside towards African-Americans and Jews was formed as they played a certain video game; the negative ideas were forced into their minds without them realizing it at a young age. A child might carry a weapon to school and try applying something he seen in movie the night before. An adult might try doing the same because of a game he played last night. The multimedia has a direct effect on our behaviors and we should stop the negative use of multimedia to sell violent material, because the minds to sell violent material, because the minds of hundreds of young ones are being corrupted day by day. Stop buying violent material and people will stop producing the material. Parents should see what video game his child buys; violence can become, a dangerous addiction. Violence can grow each day because of the negative ideas in some movies and some video games.
In conclusion every one of us should take in consideration that even though we do not realize that television, video games, and the media in general can affect us this strongly we should be careful. Violence is becoming easy for the eye to see and it will be normal when that happens. Movies containing aggression are not to be watched because they will eventually lead to more aggression and violence in the world today.